Our First Win

Yesterday I went sailing with my buddy Dan. We've sailed together some what sporadically for more than ten years now but because we aren't really serious sailors we've never actually won before. The race consists of four fleets, the A fleet (for the very serious), the B fleet, the C fleet and then there is the D fleet for the weekend warriors like myself. If you prove yourself in one fleet then you get to move up to the next level. In the entire time we've been racing we've never made it out of the D fleet. People in the A fleet are the guys who routinely scrub the bottom of their boat and wax it so that it is extra smooth and all of that stuff. We of course don't do any of that.

Each time we compete there are two races. Yesterday in the first race we didn't do so well. We are actually pretty good at getting a good starting position and all of that but we just don't seem to have it when it comes to things like how you set the sails etc. At one point we had managed to cut ahead of two other boats going around one of the markers but when we came around and were heading down wind one of the boats gradually closed the distance between us and passed us up. We had our sails set exactly the same and as best as I could see there was no difference between us but they just gradually pulled ahead of us. We didn't come in last but we just couldn't win.

Between the two races we decided to pull the little outboard motor to see if it made any difference if we could shift the center of gravity forward a bit. The motor was out of the water but it was still hanging on the back of the boat. In the end we didn't have time to figure out how to pull the motor but we did notice that our fore line had fallen into the water and during the whole race we had been dragging a stupid line. We pulled the line out of the water and wound the line up on the front of the boat. Well the most amazing thing happened. We managed to get an excellent position and crossed the starting line mere seconds after the horn went off and when we rounded the first buoy we were at least thirty yards ahead of the next contender. While a couple of racers managed to close the gap a little bit we were still clearly in the lead when we crossed the finish line. It was a glorious day.

I really wish I had pictures to share with you but sometimes when we are racing with a good wind we lean so far over in the water than I'm sure we're going to capsize the boat. For a while that would make me very nervous so I finally made sure that I didn't take anything on the boat and I decided that if we tipped it would be a fun adventure. Now I don't even worry about it but I'm not about to take my phone out there just to take a picture. The picture above was taken a while ago and it is our boat in the harbour. 

--------------------trivia--------------------

 New York area airports account for half of all the delays in America 

even though they only represent 12% of the nations air traffic. 

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